During our Lifestyle Business challenge, I received questions about freelancing. Given the current state of the world, I thought that a series of articles about freelancing might be helpful.
Becoming a freelancer is a great way to take control of your life by offering services to people and businesses that need them but who don’t want to hire full-time employees to do it. Simple, really.
Freelancers offer many types of services – from secretarial, to graphic design, to website creation, to customer service, and more.
Be in Control of Your Destiny
You can find your destiny with a job too, but as a freelancer, you are 100 percent in control of when you work, how you work, and who you work with. You don’t have to wait for answers from a CEO who has never been on the ground.
You don’t have to ask permission to miss work if you’re sick. You don’t have to ask permission to learn that new skill that can help you earn more money.
You are in control of your choices and your destiny.
Work from Anywhere
While not all freelancers work from home, many do. It depends on what you set up for yourself how you’ll do it, but most of the time, you can create a situation where you can work from anywhere – or from locations that you desire to work from.
As a freelancer, if you choose the right technology and skills to learn based on the lifestyle you want to design, you really can work from anywhere.
Every Effort You Make Rewards You, Not a Corporation
Unless you are on commission, when you work for others, regardless of what you do, you get paid your salary. Period. You might get a bonus or an employee of the month certificate. Still, it’s not going to affect you long term like it will the corporation. When you are a freelancer, your decisions pay off for you immediately, not someone else.
Experience Improved Job Security
Many people believe that jobs are secure, but as so many have discovered recently, the truth is they’re not. Most businesses work on a lean principle now of not hiring enough people and being able to fire and hire at will in order to keep costs down is a significant factor in that process.
With freelancing, you work for yourself and can always change course if you need to in order to be where the money is.
The job isn’t what is giving you security, the money is, and as long as you can keep making money, you’re going to be more secure because as a freelancer, you’re not counting on one stream of income.
Increase Your Confidence
It might seem scary at first, but the more you freelance, the more secure and confident you’re going to become and appear to others. This is going to rub off and help you serve more people with your freelancing gigs because you’re going to feel like you can do it as you experience doing it.
Live a More Fulfilled and Happy Life
The truth is that working too much is not a good fit for most people. If you really want to have a happier and fulfilled life, you need to build balance into it.
Make sure you schedule fun with family and friends in addition to plenty of working time. As a freelancer, you are in control of that schedule and can live a more fulfilled and happy life by managing your time to include all parts of your life.
Gain the Ability to Earn More Money
Freelancing puts you in command of how much you get paid. You choose the rate, not the customer. You are in control of how you do everything and can make more money as a freelancer than if you are trapped in the hourly wages, paid time off, and vacation pay trap.
You only do projects that pay enough to live because you oversee it. Also, since you’re just you, you can often end up charging less than a huge corporation and still end up more profitable as your expenses are lower.
You may have to start off charging less to get some clients but once you have established yourself and have a good rating, you can set your rates to whatever the market can handle.
Design the Life You Really Want to Live
As a freelancer, you can genuinely design precisely the life you want. You can command your schedule so that you have enough time to earn the money you need to live and then live the life you were meant to enjoy.
You’ll no longer be counting on an employer to make the rules and give you raises. You’ll do that for yourself, and you really can design the life you want to live, exactly the way you dreamed it
The fact is, being a freelancer gives you more security, more options, and generally more money than working hourly jobs. You can stop trading hours for dollars and work with the people you want to work with, in a way that enables you to have more flexibility with your family and your life. There really is unlimited opportunity out there if you know where to look when it comes to finding a way to freelance and change your life.
